


Consider the stars

by Veraverorum (your_Mother)



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Relationship, quest to knowledge
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-07-31
Packaged: 2018-12-09 09:55:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 914
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11666781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/your_Mother/pseuds/Veraverorum
Summary: There were many things that Zenyatta had been learning since the Iris had opened to him, awakening his conscience from the slumber it had been subjected due to his nature of omnic, but everything was so foreign to him.





	Consider the stars

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lacertae](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lacertae/gifts).



> Happy birthday to 'Pai, happy birthday to 'Pai, happy birthday to 'Pai... and also happy 10 years anniversary of our first meeting! :D <3

It was a night that one could have defined cold, if they were subject to human standards.  
  
In Zenyatta's case, he wasn't. Certainly he could perceive an external lower temperature that influenced a different, slightly slower flow in his internal fluids, but it didn't imply a change in the response process of his system.  
  
Mondatta had called temperature perception a sensation. Something of inherently alive. Something that as a constructed machinery, Zenyatta wasn't supposed to feel. Not until the Iris happened.  
  
There were many things that Zenyatta had been learning since the Iris had opened to him, awakening his conscience from the slumber it had been subjected due to his nature of omnic, but everything was so foreign to him, freshly liberated from human slavery.  
  
It was a bumpy road, putting a name on everything. Words were extremely powerful, he was given to understand. While the binary system with whom robots communicated was simple and straightforward, a word could have so many significances and connotations. The more he learned, the more things he was able to understand from then on, he found out. Not mathematical or scientific knowledge. Something more deep.  
  
Lost in his thoughts, Zenyatta's sensors perceived the new sound of somebody moving closer to where he was sitting, but he didn't give it importance, letting it slide in the background operations of his system as he raised his head up to look at the stars.  
  
“What are you doing out here at this hour?” it was Mondatta's voice coming from behind him.  
  
For a moment Zenyatta didn't answer, legs hanging out from the balustrade of an external hallway of the Shambali monastery. Something that he wouldn't have been able to do when first he was activated in the belly of the production factory where he got assembled. Neither leisurely laying around nor thinking, feeling.  
  
“I think I'm meditating”, he was still unsure how to use correctly some words, not so immediate in deciding their weight in a conversation.  
  
The monk sat down next to Zenyatta, posture relaxed - “oh, I see.”  
  
“Is it still meditation even if I'm not in the meditation room or in a meditating stance though?” Zenyatta asked. Oddly enough, breaking the rules didn't scare him that much now that he had been awakened, but the Shambali had been the utmost gracious hosts in his regards that he felt disrespectful in evading their guidelines.  
  
Mondatta emitted a curious noise, something like a obstructed sliding tape, before answering - “it is.”  
  
"What is the noise that you have just made, Mondatta?" he had heard humans and some omnics too doing a quite similar vocalization and he was interested in discovering more. Too bad there were few with whom Zenyatta felt himself comfortable enough to ask such kind of questions. Thankfully Mondatta was between those few.  
  
"That was laughter. It is supposed to represent a positive feeling, but its meaning can differ according to the situation. Sometimes it can be a cruel thing" the monk was always serene even when explaining basic things like that, and Zenyatta was grateful for it. Mondatta had a calming voice, the sort of voice that Zenyatta had heard other monks define _warm_ , and in that cold night he could understand why. He felt happy talking with Mondatta, no matter the topic.  
  
"It seems... Complicated...", experiencing uncertainty and giving it a name was another thing to which Zenyatta had yet to get used to. He was working on it. Zenyatta moved his head in the inquisitive manner he had seen many humans doing before, inclining it lightly on the side while facing his interlocutor.  
  
Mondatta hummed in appreciation of gesture, if only to show Zenyatta his effort had been noticed - "as many things related to emotions, it is. But generally it's a nice sound. Beautiful to hear.”  
  
At that, Zenyatta got even more puzzled than before - "a sound can belong to the category of beauty?”  
  
Laughing again, Mondatta readied himself for the explanation, the leds on his faceplate gently pulsing - "beauty encompasses many categories, my brother, may they be physical objects or concepts or moments. And it can differ from subject to subject what is perceived as beautiful. Some things are universally beautiful while some others are believed beautiful only on a more personal plane. Many beauties have different values.”  
  
Mondatta took a brief pause, his sound emitter producing static noise as he raised his head to the dark sky - “consider the stars. They are masses of matter and energy happening so far away from now and here, yet we can see just the light they produced in a different time, way before this exact moment. This light seems to tremble to human eyes and some less developed optical sensors, making it seem fragile. To all the other more developed optical sensors this light only means a distance and a velocity, something that can be calculated without failure, but to humans it means beauty. It depends on what parameters one is using to value something.”  
  
Zenyatta too had returned to watch the stars while he listened to the monk. It was a new piece of information to add to his expanding knowledge. Beauty had not a permanent value easy to calculate, so he had to find his own starting point to measure it.  
  
That night Zenyatta learned the meaning of beauty, and decided that since that moment he would compare everything to the light of the stars and Mondatta's laugh to understand if it should be called beautiful.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Kudos and comments make authors happy.  
> You know what also makes authors happy? Wishing their friend happy birthday :D  
> Go go go! http://lacertae-dreamscape.tumblr.com/ask


End file.
